


a day before midnight

by batofgoodintent (crownedcrusader)



Category: DCU (Comics), Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Gen, Ric Aftermath, new years feels ... only 2 weeks late lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-18 06:13:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28738560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownedcrusader/pseuds/batofgoodintent
Summary: After you lose pieces of yourself, they don't always fit back the same.-Post-Ric Grayson.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne
Comments: 6
Kudos: 58





	a day before midnight

**Author's Note:**

> initially was going to be about something very project-y but then i changed course midway. heres ricky instead

Dick holds the phone up to his ear, pinning it to his shoulder as he washes dishes. It wouldn’t do to drop it, after all. Too much important information was stashed in the notes; too many things he was holding onto, privately, that he wouldn’t upload to the Oracle Intel Cloud. Barbara might know everything, but she didn’t need to know  _ everything _ .

Like the fact that he was still going through his phone and writing down details he couldn’t remember. Things he needed to research, so no one would know about the lapses in memory he still had. 

“No, I heard you, B. Just washing something.” Dick bites his cheek, chewing more on his answer than the flesh itself. Bruce repeats himself anyways, and Dick tunes him out as he thinks it over. 

The annual Justice League New Year’s event. 

He’d come as Bruce’s plus-one most years, especially when he was little. As he got older, he’d stopped going -- preferring instead to spend New Year’s with his friends.

This is different. This is an invitation. 

But now, Bruce is calling him specifically to ask if he’s going to RSVP. Weird. 

Dick half wants to say that he’d already gotten the email, and the letter, and the text. He doesn’t need a phone call, too. That was the whole point of an RSVP. You’re invited, then you contact the host to let them know you’re coming. That way, you don’t get harassed by emails and texts until the party. 

It’s December 30th. He’d gotten the invite Christmas Day. 

He has until tomorrow to decide. 

“-Dick. Can you even hear me?” 

Dick snaps out of it so quickly that he nearly drops his phone in the water. The water, which he now realizes has overflowed from the pot, and is halfway to filling up his entire sink. He swears under his breath, then does what he should have done all along. He puts the phone on speaker, then sets it next to the sink. 

Damn him for not doing it earlier. 

“Sorry. Yeah. Just -- distracted.” 

“Is now not a good time?” 

Dick sighs, and starts to scrub the caked-on remains of dinner from the last three nights. Somehow, it was grosser eating it than it is scrubbing the gunk off his plates. “It’s as good a time as any.” 

“Have you been too busy to RSVP?” Bruce asks, voice getting that slight growly quality it always got when he was impatient. “Or do you genuinely not want to come?” 

“None of the above.” 

“That’s a ‘neither’ response, Dick. Only two options.” And Dick could almost see Bruce’s eyes narrow. He’s glad it’s just a voice call and not a facetime. He can roll his eyes in peace this way. “Are you sure you’re alright?” 

“Peachy. Never better.” 

“Then RSVP so we know to expect you.” 

“Bruce.” Dick rubs his wrist against his forehead, probably getting suds all over his skin. At least it’s not in his eye. “No.” 

Bruce is silent. It’s as much a demand for more information as any gravelly ‘Explain.  _ Now _ .’ has ever been. 

“I’m not up for a League meeting,” Dick admits. “I’d really rather not go.” 

“It’s not a meeting, Dick. It’s a party. You’ve known most of these heroes since you were eleven--” 

“I don’t want to go, Bruce. That’s why I didn’t RSVP. Because I  _ don’t want to go _ .” 

Bruce is silent again. For a moment, Dick thinks he’ll have to be the one to salvage what’s left of this conversation. But finally, Bruce sighs. “Can I ask why? Did someone do something to upset you?” 

“Nah.” Dick glances back down at the pot in the sink, feeling distracted again. Damn it. He doesn’t want to clean this one. But if he’s going to eat anything reasonably healthy tonight, it’s got to get washed. And he has to eat something healthy tonight. Alfred will know if he doesn’t, damn him. “I just don’t feel like talking to everyone. And I definitely won’t be posing for any pictures.” 

He’s not self-conscious of his injury. Not anymore. But it has messed up his hairline. Even now that the head-shot has been healed and he’s been growing his hair out since regaining his memories as Dick Grayson, he still doesn’t want  _ pictures _ . He doesn’t want to be a memorabilia. 

“No one will take any with you if you ask them not to.” 

“Sure they won’t.” Dick rolls his eyes. “I’ve been to League parties, B. Plus, even if they say they won’t and keep their word, I’d still rather not be in the background of anyone’s selfies.” He pauses. “Or the foreground of an… what’s the superhero equivalent of an upskirt?”

“There isn’t one.”

“An up-costume. An up-kevlar.” Dick tests it out on his tongue, then decides to adopt it into his ever-growing superhero lexicon. 

“There isn’t an equivalent for an upskirt because this is a community of  _ heroes _ , Dick. They won’t take any pictures of you without your consent, let alone something so unsavory,” Bruce says, sounding very carefully patient. The kind of patience that will evaporate with one more wrong word. When Dick doesn’t laugh and agree, Bruce pauses. “...You can’t be serious.” 

“Last New Year’s. Six different pictures of me.” He pauses. “Well, not just me -- I posed with everyone. But there were six separate pictures taken of one very specific part of me.” 

Bruce falls silent again.

Dick continues on, piling on another excuse, as if that’d make it less concerning. “Plus, I don’t feel like washing my suit for a party. And then having to wash it again because someone spills champagne all over me.” 

“...You should probably wash it anyways.” For an instant, Dick thinks he’s had a successful distraction. But Bruce doubles down. “But that won’t be an issue this year. We can set off an EMP if we need to.” 

It’s so drastic it borders on ludicrous. Dick stares at the phone for a second, thinking he’s being punked. When Bruce doesn’t laugh, Dick just shakes his head.

“Or we can skip the EMP, and I just won’t come.”

“Dick-”

“I really don’t want to be there, B.” 

“Then at least tell me if what you said is the reason, or a deflection.” 

Dick closes his eyes and lets out a slow sigh. “Isn’t it good enough to be my reason?” 

“For anyone else, yes.” 

Dick grinds his molars. “Thank you for that. Warms my heart.” 

Bruce must realize he’s messed up, because his tone shifts an entire octave. He’s venturing dangerously close to fatherly territory. “I didn’t mean to be insensitive. I just know that you’ve powered through worse.”

Dick cuts him off. That’s not a conversation they’re ever going to have, if he can help it. “Bruce? I swear to god, the next words out of your mouth need to be  _ ‘you don’t need to go to the New Year’s party’ _ . Can you do that for me?” 

“...If that’s how you feel, then don’t come.” There’s another beat of silence, because Dick doesn’t feel half as relieved as he should. Not with that tone. And he’s proven right when Bruce continues: “Tell the Titans they can’t steal you for every holiday.” 

“I was at the Manor less than a week ago, or do you not remember Christmas Eve?” Dick says. The pot is almost clean, but there’s a stubborn spot, stuck to the very bottom. Stubborn, like Bruce. Maybe even stubborn like Dick himself. “Besides, I’m not spending New Year’s with the Titans, either.” 

At this point, Bruce’s silence is expected. Dick’s halfway to making a joke about lag on the other end when his mentor-father-something figure sighs sharply through his nose. “So you’re spending New Year’s alone in your apartment?” 

“Don’t jump to conclusions, I never said that.” He pauses, biting his cheek. Debating making up a fake girlfriend, a fake boyfriend, a fake case. 

“Is there a mission that night?”

“No. I don’t… -There’s nothing planned.” 

Dick isn’t sure he’s imagining Bruce’s face correctly; in theory, no one’s lips can get that pinched and thin at the same time. However, he  _ does  _ know that his mentor-father-something is flexing his jaw at Dick’s evasive answers. “You’re being obstinate. You  _ know  _ what I’m asking.” 

It’s an invitation to ask Bruce to use his words. To say,  _ ‘as a matter of fact, Bruce, I don’t know what you’re asking. Tell me what you want to know.’  _ And Bruce would finally come out with it already and ask,  _ ‘You never isolate this completely unless something’s wrong. What happened?’ _ Any other time, he’d take it. But not right now. 

So for once, Dick stays quiet. 

The other end stays dead silent, and Dick just knows that Bruce’s detective-brain is firing. Trying to come up with any conclusion, any reason that might be underpinning Dick’s reasons to be alone. 

Trying to ask if this is yet another lapse of memory. 

Dick clenches his fist and reaches for the next dish to scrub. His apartment might be tiny, and dingy, and in need of a good scrubbing -- but it’s his, and he’s worked for it. 

“No one blames you for this last year,” Bruce finally says. 

“Really?  _ News to me _ .” Dick is a little more vindictive with this next dish. It almost breaks, cheap porcelain that it is. He pulls himself back before it can snap. Maybe he ought to start using plastic dishes if he’s going to work off this much aggression. “I remember everyone, Bruce. But there wasn’t a single League member who sought me out. Not a single friend who tried to reach out. And I know half of them could have easily tracked me down.” 

Bruce sighs though his nose. “Like most things, you’ll find that it’s my fault they didn’t.” 

Dick doesn’t even flinch. He’d figured as much. “That’s the other thing. My friends -- your friends -- should have cared enough to check for themselves.” 

“You told us, time and time again, to stay away from you. That you wanted nothing to do with us, or any vigilante lifestyle.” 

“Maybe I’d have changed my tune if I’d realized I had some friends with emotional range beyond guilt and anger,” he snapped. “The Titans were my other family. I  _ led  _ the League when I was Batman. And none of them came.” 

Bruce falls silent again. There’s a lengthy beat of silence. Dick washes three cups, six spoons, and a knife, before Bruce finally finds his voice. 

“You came for Christmas.” 

“Because you’re still family. But that doesn’t mean you get every holiday. I need  _ time _ , Bruce. Time where I don’t have to be anything for anyone else.” 

“So you’ll drink alone in your apartment and view it as an accomplishment, instead of spending time with people who care about you. People who miss you.” 

This time, a plate does crack under his hands. Blood drops into the water, but it’s washed off by the near-boiling tap coming from the faucet. Dick doesn’t flinch. “Fuck you, Bruce.”

Dick ends the call, and blood and water lingers on the home button. 

He cleans his hand, then gets a paper towel. 

The blood wipes off just as easily as the water. Neither is thick enough to linger. 

Just to spite Bruce, he does get a beer from the fridge. As Dick Grayson, he rarely drank. But he recalls drinking to excess regularly, as Ric. It’s not quite a habit -- not ingrained enough in his newly repaired mind for that. But the taste is familiar, and well-deserved. 

He lays back on the couch, eyes on his ceiling until the world gets blurry.

There are no fireworks, because it’s still the 30th. Still one more day in this year. Still one day more to reflect on how his world was turned upside down. One more day for him to mourn the loss of ages past. 

But after becoming Batman. After Spyral. After his head injury, and becoming Ric-- 

The last three years have been miserable. 

He raises a glass to the roof anyways, distantly seeing himself in the reflection of his patio door. 

“No matter where you go, that’s where you are,” he says. What he’s quoting, he doesn’t know, but it seems to fit. He’s been the only common factor in all his experiences. He had to give up Nightwing for Batman, then Dick Grayson for Agent 37, then his memories themselves, and was left with Ric Grayson -- whoever that was. But after all that -- here he was. 

Maybe next year he’ll spend New Year’s with friends and family. But not this year.

This year, he’s going to take a few days to figure out who it is he’s been left with. Just because he’s gotten his identity back, doesn’t mean all the pieces fit together like they used to. 

He crosses his arms behind his head, and keeps looking up at the ceiling. 

“To another year,” he says, distantly. “Let’s hope they don’t find something new to take, yeah?” 

The ceiling doesn’t answer. Dick just hopes he hasn’t jinxed himself. 


End file.
